I tried to watch netflix ‘13 Reasons Why’ series after reading article about ‘scientists found a 13.3 percent increase in teenagers’ deaths from suicide”
source: https://theverge.com/2019/5/...

I started scrolling trough the show after second episode cause it was so boring and predictable.

Maybe I’m just to old or maybe don’t understand USA school system or maybe I watched way to many typical movies about how the ‘popular group of teenagers’ make other teenagers life a nightmare ( Including scary movie and Venezuelan telenovelas ).

Can anybody who got interested into the show write why it is so cool or depressing ?

I’ll give you my 2 cents, I haven’t watched the entire series but I can already get a notion as to what the overall content is and why there has been some controversy around it.

Like most media, the series is sensationalist, reductive and the narrative structure is manipulative — the content contains “shock value” in order for you to keep watching more. Here’s the punch: For the healthy rational adult, they can easily recognize this. However according to statistics, Netflix led the pack with 37.6% of teens' daily video consumption..
Teenagers respond to environment quite differently then us; especially with sensitive topics.

Almost every show, movie, etc. is boring and predictable now.

@lynova So from your perspective is it ugly reality picked from lots of places packed to tv show to build sensation around it ? Because this is how I feel watching it ( I’m not from US just trying to understand stuff ).

I’m not saying that the content is wrong just that those things are way nicer then in 60s or 70s not to mention serial killers stuff or war content.

Here in Poland during high school education we visit World War II concentration camps and watch documentaries about it to see what people can do to other people, maybe that’s why we see world a bit different.

Thanks for comment.

@vane It’s a complicated two-fold because it’s not only about a reality that isn’t shown for what it is but it’s the perspective of the individual experiencing it.

It’s one thing to appropriately and effectively raise awareness about a sensitive topic but it is unfortunate that this particular series was not written and produced in a way that truly provided information about mental illness. I hope this gives some clarification.

P.S I’ve always wanted to visit Poland. Hello from New York!

@lynova Thanks that clarified me things a bit.

@vane sorry, but visiting a concentration camp has virtually nothing to do with depression and willingness to commit suicide. This claim is baseless.
If you never had any real urge to kill people around you and/or end your life, you won't be able to relate.

Dear OP,
If 13 reasons increased the suicide rate in teens, and that scares you, check what happened after publishing the book of geran author Goethe, "sufferings of young Werter" (name might be little different, I'm translating it from PL).

I read some part of the 13 reasons book, dropped because it's, well, not my kind of book. I think teens feel that they are close to the story and relate themselves with the girl (and other characters) so they want to act similarly. They had similar experiences in their life. So they want to end their lives when they feel miserable, helpless, hurt and rejected by everyone.

This resonates with popularity of Jordan Peterson in young men...

One thing that I haven't seen mentioned here is the fact that showing or reporting about suicide can actually push other suicidal people over the edge.
There are plenty of scientific studies about this phenomenon, and it's why there are very strict rules about reporting suicide in public news for example (ie: don't report it at all costs).
If you're interested, look up 'suicide contagion': https://cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/...

It's very unlikely that a tv show will push a healthy person to suicide by itself. But due to the highly romanticized view of suicide and depression that this show has, it tends to attract many people who might already be suffering from these issues, and give them just enough of a push in the wrong direction.

@mt3o WW2 case points the difference between US and PL. Here war is more present so it might have link with depression that maybe there is more depression among US children due to this.

Remember that psychology studies are fairly new.

Maybe young people living in PL who don’t have any living relatives who fought for freedom are vulnerable as much as their US friends cause US culture is highly praised here or maybe it’s just bullshit and cause is somewhere else in parenting, education or even in young human mind.

Also fact is that all people no matter what age they are tend to behave differently when they are in danger or were exposed to extreme situation and it’s interesting how media increase this extreme.

I’m just trying to get a high perspective point of view if there is some difference and if so how it impacts people.

@M1sf3t Yeah pressure of the community is the worst part I have to deal with. I think it is similar in most countries but different in pressure points. Here it is mostly related to religion, politics and family as we are still country that is recovering after communism.
Actually people born in this millenium will be first from centuries that might have opportunity to live in some decent conditions and make a difference on this world as they won't remember anything related to those hard times.
Well who knows...

@endor I agree that marketing of it in mass media is making things worse as it doesn't point enough that all of this is just a movie.
I saw that people with some disorder tend to take fiction as reality much more than others as the way to escape. Those escapes are tv shows, books or video games and I don't think there is enough knowledge or just no will among journalists to explain those facts when writing articles or reports.
Like in one you mentioned "Doe was also known to have been a zealous player of fantasy video games.".